The ecosystem and the language system: conflict or harmony by Prof. Tom Bartlett from the University of Glasgow
Date: 2019-11-16
On November 14, Professor Tom Bartlett of the University of Glasgow visited SFS and gave an academic lecture.
The lecture was entitled The ecosystem and the language system: conflict or harmony? and was hosted by Dean Huang Guowen.
In the lecture, Professor Tom Bartlett pointed out that Halliday and Matthiessen saw language as a system, and he analyzed the consistency of this view and the view of the environment as an ecosystem, and the relationship’s impact on human sustainability. Professor Tom Bartlett compared the similarities and differences between language systems and ecosystems. The angles of discussion included the relationship between micro systems and contexts, the internal connection of micro systems at different levels, the feedback loops of these micro systems and the overall complexity of the resulting system. Professor Tom Bartlett then analyzed how the different ways of discussing the environment adapted to the local background, and how to bridge these differences to connect experience and scientific understanding in the sustainability discourse.
Teachers and students present actively asked questions, to which Professor Tom Bartlett gave detailed answers.
After the lecture, Professor Tom Bartlett visited the Centre of Ecolinguistics of SFS and discussed the cooperation between the two schools with Dean Huang Guowen. The doctoral students of SFS also consulted him regarding the topics of their doctoral theses.
Professor Tom Bartlett works at the University of Glasgow and is also an emeritus professor at Cardiff University. His main research areas are systemic functional linguistics, critical discourse analysis, and development and sustainability discourse. His main academic achievements include The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics and Rethinking (context of) culture in Systemic Functional Linguistics , Perspectives from Systemic Functional Linguistics, Analysing Power in Language: A Practical Guide, The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Analysis, etc..
This lecture is the 42nd of SFS Foreign Language Forum.
(Report by Qin Jianhua Pictures by Long Xiang)
